By Paul Cwick

"Okay, you can put your clothes back on now."

"Good, I was freezing." Greg sat on the doctor’s examination room table, and pulled his T-shirt over his head. Brrr, it’s chilly in here! he thought, as continued dressing. He couldn’t understand how Cat could stand to run around this way so much of the time; it amazed him that she wasn’t constantly catching cold. Meanwhile, the doctor scribbled down some notes. At length, she spoke, without looking up.

"What you’ve got, Mr. Novak, is a mild case of gastritis."

"What’s that?"

"An inflammation of the mucous membrane that lines the stomach."

Greg blinked twice and stared at the doctor. "Are you telling me I have an ulcer?"

The doctor looked up and chuckled. "Oh my goodness, no! No, you’re a long way off from an ulcer yet! Gastritis is just an inflammation, in your case very mild, which can be caused by many things: excessive alcohol consumption, a bacterial infection, sensitivity to spicy foods, oh all sorts of things."

"Stress?"

"Stress can be a factor, yes. Why, do you feel you’re under an inordinate amount of stress lately?"

"Well, I uh.." Greg started to say, but his attention was momentarily distracted by an overhead cabinet behind the doctor opening by itself. "I have been under a certain amount of stress lately, I guess." he said.

"Hmm. Well, that’s not good." the doctor said. "Do you smoke?" Greg shook his head. "Do you drink?" Greg admitted that he had been hitting the juice a bit more heavily in recent weeks. The doctor advised Greg to stop drinking immediately. "Even if your gastritis has another direct cause, both stress and alcohol intake can exacerbate it." she said, and went on to prescribe a medication to alleviate the pain and reduce excess stomach acid. She also prescribed a special light diet. As she was speaking, a small package floated out of the cabinet behind her and quietly tore itself open. A rubber surgical glove emerged from the package and proceeded to pull itself onto an unseen hand. Greg mutely watched all of this, with jaws clenched, barely listening to the doctor’s words. Finally, the doctor got his attention. "Are you listening to me?" she said.

Greg turned to face the doctor again. "Yes, of course."

"Above all, try to avoid stress." She said. "Avoid as many things as you can that cause you aggravation."

"Well, I uh—" Greg fumbled for words, continuing to watch the floating rubber glove behind the doctor. "I try to avoid trouble, doc but…" The glove now waved its fingers at him. "But somehow, it always manages to find me."

The doctor smiled. "I hear you. But do the best you can. Do you exercise regularly?" Greg admitted that he’d been meaning to, but had sort of let it slide. The doctor recommended that he start exercising regularly, pointing out that, in addition to the health benefits, it was also an excellent way to reduce stress. She made a few last notes and got up to leave. As she did so, the floating rubber glove pulled itself from the unseen hand with loud snapping sounds and deposited itself onto the counter. The doctor heard the sound, and turned to look, and saw the limp rubber glove lying on the counter. "What the hell is this thing doing out?" she asked no one in particular. She was just about to reach for it when it suddenly floated up off the counter and over to the corner of the room where the wastebasket was. The top of the basket flipped open, and the rubber glove dropped inside.

The doctor watched this entire display with an expression that could only be described as "saucer-eyed." Slowly she turned with an unusually pale face to Greg and said in a quiet, shaky voice, "Did you see that?" Slowly, silently, Greg nodded. The doctor couldn’t be sure, but she had the gut feeling from Greg’s reaction (or rather the lack thereof) that he’d seen this sort of thing before. Many times. The expression on the doctor’s face subtly changed from one of bewilderment to one of subdued fright, and she quickly hurried out of the room, leaving Greg to continue dressing alone. Or so she thought.

When the doctor had left, Greg whispered, "Cat, what are you doing here?"

"Oh, I just thought I’d see how my little boy-toy was doing, that’s all! I’m glad you’re all right. See, I told you that wasn’t an ulcer. Ulcers are caused by stress, everybody knows that. What have you got to be stressed about?"

Greg bit his tongue as an answer occurred to him.

* * *

Shortly thereafter, Greg renewed his membership at a nearby health club. He had once gotten a free membership there as part of the benefits package of his job. When he’d first gotten the membership, he worked out there frequently, but then as time went on, he got progressively lazier, finding excuses to avoid going. Now, however, he reactivated his membership with renewed enthusiasm. And incentive. Not only for the health benefits pointed out by the doctor, but also because, he realized, it would offer him one of the few remaining opportunities left to him to be completely alone.

Not that he was trying to avoid Cat, exactly--although her invisibility had without question made their relationship somewhat strained in recent months. But the simple fact was that having her constantly around him when he couldn’t see her was, quite frankly, driving him crazy. She was taking her potion more and more frequently now, and as a result, Greg got to actually see her less and less. Yet everywhere he went, everything he did, there she was, following him around, popping in on him unexpectedly, scaring the bejeezis out of him. She seemed to take a perverse pleasure in doing that, he thought. The only times Greg ever saw Cat at all anymore was on the rare occasion when he would stop by her herb store during the day to invite her to lunch or something. But even then, lately when he would stop by, she was often nowhere to be seen. Greg wondered if she had started going to work while invisible. He chuckled bitterly to himself; that must come in real handy for catching shoplifters, he thought.

Even when Cat would spend the weekends at Greg’s place, she would often take her potion and become invisible, but not take her clothes off, so Greg had to look at the ghostly sight of empty clothes walking around by themselves all weekend long. Even after all this time, it still gave Greg the creeps to see it. And, of course, as soon as Cat realized that Greg was bothered by it, she began to do it more and more. Sometimes she would deliberately taunt him, saying things like, "All I have to do is take this off…and then I can do anything I want to you! Anything at all…!" As if he needed a reminder!

And then there was that whole scene at Jeremiah’s. Good lord, that was a nightmare! The questioning from the police, all those news reporters (especially that one obnoxious little jerk with the glasses!) And then when the paper hit the stands…and people at work started asking him questions about it! Good God… He shuddered just thinking about it. He remembered it was right around that time that the stomach pains started…

So Greg began working out at the club. He worked out three nights a week. It was one of those 24-hour places, open all night long, so he arranged to have his exercise sessions late at night when the place was almost empty. He preferred it that way; having Cat constantly underfoot made him crave complete solitude all the more. He swam in the pool, worked out with the weight machines, rode the stationary bicycle, used the Stairmaster. Although it was difficult at first (good lord, he was out of shape, he soon realized!) by the end of the third week, he began to feel better about it, and felt that he was showing some results. He felt that he had more stamina and energy, and just as the doctor had predicted, he felt more relaxed as well, less stressful. And he was sleeping better, too. That doctor sure knows her stuff, he thought.

On one particular evening, Greg had just finished a particularly invigorating workout and was taking a shower. I feel great, he thought. I should have started doing this months ago. He rinsed himself, turned off the shower, and then, grabbing a towel, walked to the locker room (which was deserted at that late hour) drying himself off. He sat on the bench near his locker, continuing to dry himself, when he was suddenly startled by a familiar voice:

"Well, well! So this is where you’ve been going every other night!" said Cat’s disembodied voice, causing Greg to (literally) almost jump out of his skin.

"CAT!!!" he cried, "What are you doing in here?!? This is the men’s locker room!" Instinctively, he looked around (as if that would do him any good) and tried to cover himself with the towel as best he could.

"So? It’s not the first time I’ve been inside one of these. One of the fringe-benefits of being invisible!" she giggled. "Anyhow, I’m just checking up on you to see just what you’ve been up to lately without me. I’m just making sure that you’ve been behaving yourself."

Her voice seemed to move closer. "So you’re working out again. Well good for you, you really need it. Maybe now you’ll get rid of that spare tire around the middle!" she said, poking Greg’s stomach with an invisible finger.

"Stop that!" Greg said, trying to protect his exposed breadbasket.

"And these!" she said, grabbing Greg’s ‘love handles,’ causing Greg to let out a brief squawk. "Actually, these are kind of cute," she said, giggling and giving them a gentle squeeze. "Maybe you should keep them. They give me something to hang onto!"

"Will you please stop that!"

"I’m just trying to encourage you, that’s all. You need the exercise. I knew you were out of shape when I could beat you to the restaurant that one time, remember?"

Greg shuddered as he recalled the incident. "I thought we agreed not to talk about that." he said, annoyed. He tried to finish drying himself, but was interrupted by the touch of invisible hands stroking his body. "Now what are you doing?" he said. "Stop that!"

"Oh, come on Greg," said Cat. "Come on, let’s have some fun!" she said, continuing with her caresses. Suddenly, she seated herself on Greg’s lap. She put her invisible arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her, kissing him.

"Cat, come on!"

"No, YOU come on."

"Cat, this isn’t the place! You don’t even belong in here! Suppose somebody comes in?"

"So what? They can’t see me!"

"They can see ME! What are they gonna think? Do you want me to get my butt thrown out of here for being a pervert or something?"

"Boy, you’re getting to be a real wet blanket, you know that? You’re no fun at all anymore. But I can fix that." She pulled him closer and her invisible hands began to explore his body.

"Cat, I mean it! Get off!" he said, pushing her off his lap. And immediately wishing he hadn’t, as he heard the dull thud of something hitting the hard tile floor, accompanied by the sound of Cat letting out a squawk at the moment of impact.

After a moment, she spoke. "That wasn’t very nice." she said.

Greg shivered as he heard the tone of her voice. "I-I’m sorry Cat, I didn’t mean it. Are you hurt?" There was no answer. Greg got up and started reaching his hands out, feeling around for her. "Are you all right?"

"I’ll live," she said, rubbing her rear as she rose from the floor. "But that really wasn’t very nice, Greg. You play too rough. You should learn how to play nice. Because I can play rough too, you know."

Oh no, Greg thought. Not again. "Please, Cathy. I said I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!"

A silence followed.

"Cathy?" Greg said. "Cathy? Where are you? What are you going to do?"

Another silence followed before Cat spoke again. "Greg, do you know what a ‘rat tail’ is?" she said. Her voice now came from the far corner of the room.

A what? What the hell’s she talking about now? he wondered. "Uh….No…" he said, turning to face the new location her voice seemed to come from. He slowly sat back down on the bench, trying to remain calm.

"That’s where you take a towel like this one," she said, picking up a towel from a laundry basket in the corner. "And you soak it like this," The towel floated over to a sink, where the faucets turned themselves on for a brief moment or two. "And then you wring it and twist it up like this." Greg swallowed hard as he watched the towel twist itself up tightly in mid-air. "When you snap it, it stings like crazy," she said. Suddenly, the towel whipped through the air with a sharp whistling sound.

Greg got up from the bench and started to back away. "Cathy, please! Please don’t! I said I’m sorry, all right?"

"Sorry, Greg," she said. "But you brought this on yourself." The towel whipped itself through the air again, only this time it connected with Greg’s skin. He let out a howl and jumped away. The towel whipped and connected a second time, then a third. Soon, Greg was being chased around the locker room by the flying wet towel, which continued its attack. Before long, a dozen large red welts appeared all over his body, and tears flowed down his cheeks.

Greg froze dead in his tracks when he suddenly noticed an extremely large individual completely filling the doorway of the locker room. It was an employee of the health club. The floating towel abruptly dropped to the floor.

The employee stood staring at Greg, then looked around the locker room, to see who else was in there. He saw no one. "What the hell is going on in here?" the employee said, in a voice that sounded like rolling thunder.

"Uh…………..uh…….Nothing….." said Greg, trying to look innocent…and failing miserably.

The dinosaurean club employee regarded Greg with narrowed, suspicious eyes, noting the large red welts that were now forming on Greg’s skin. He then looked at the towel lying on the floor, and then back to Greg again. The expression on the employee’s face now turned to one of disgust. "Sir," the employee said in a tone that suggested barely-controlled revulsion, "I think you’d better leave the premises. Right now."

"Okay…okay…" Greg said, scurrying back to his locker, hastily pulling his clothes out of the locker and hurrying to dress himself.

The employee turned to leave, and just as he did so, Greg heard the unmistakable sound of a swift kick connecting with a person’s backside. In the space of one instant, Greg knew what had happened. And he knew what the employee was thinking as he turned around and came straight for Greg with a look of cold fury in his eyes. Greg realized all of this in a mere nanosecond, and yet he was unable to do anything about it. Because at the end of that nanosecond, an extremely large, heavy fist embarked upon a collision course with Greg’s left eye. The moment of impact arrived, and for Greg, everything suddenly went black.

* * *

Some time later, Greg sat in the driver’s seat of his car, examining his bruised eye, now swollen completely shut, in the rear-view mirror. "Well, I hope you’re satisfied, Cathy!" he said. "This really takes the cake. This even tops your little stunt at Jeremiah’s a few weeks ago--which I’m NEVER going to live down, by the way! Look at me! I’m sore all over from head to foot, I got punched out, nearly blinded, for God’s sake, my club membership has been permanently revoked and by this time tomorrow, it’ll probably be all over town that I got thrown out of this place for being a pervert. All thanks to you. I hope you’re happy."

"I’m sorry, Greg." Cat said, in a not-very-sincere tone. "But look on the bright side. At least now maybe you’ll have more time to spend with me."

Greg froze as a sudden realization struck him. Slowly, he turned to face the empty car seat next to him, forgetting for a moment that Cat was still invisible. He glared at the deep impression in the seat, where an unseen weight rested upon it. "You did this whole thing on purpose, didn’t you?" he said. "You WANTED me to get thrown out of here so you could have me all to yourself!"

"Now, Greg," Cat said, laughing. "Do I look like the kind of person who’d do a thing like that?"

Greg continued to glare silently at the empty seat.

"Anyway, it’s getting late," Cat said. "You can drive me home, now."

Greg continued to frown in silence.

"Did you hear me?" said Cat. "I said I want to go home."

Greg turned away and stared straight ahead through the windshield.

"Greg." said Cat, quietly, "I won’t ask you again. You’re beginning to make me angry. You don’t want me to get angry…do you?"

Greg turned the key in the ignition, starting the car. He floored the gas pedal, peeling out of the parking space. No question about it, he thought as he tore out of the parking lot and onto the expressway with tires squealing. This situation is really getting intolerable.

**************************

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